


root out the wine-dark honeyed center

by skatingsplits



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Canon Compliant Misogyny, Canon Compliant general shittiness, F/M, Forced Marriage, Period Typical Attitudes, marriage law, sorry bout it, started out marisa centric and got a bit shippy, yeah i don't know what I'm doing either but buckle in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatingsplits/pseuds/skatingsplits
Summary: If his preferred course of action happens to violate the arbitrary rules that sallow men in ill-fitting cloaks spend their lives dreaming up out of thin air, so be it. His academic work would barely be worth a footnote in history if he always adhered to the letter of the law.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 57
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter One: Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Obviously this is an AU but it seems worth noting that as well as the main plot device, I've also adjusted our central duo's canon(ish) ages so there's much less of a gap. I hasten to add that this was for plot reasons, not moralistic ones, don't want anyone thinking I've had an entire personality transplant.  
> 2\. Title from The Mountain Goats' "The House That Dripped Blood".

It isn’t that Asriel exactly believes he’s above the law. It’s merely something that seldom occurs to him; he does what he wishes to do and he does it of his own volition, not on the whims of self-righteous bastards in Westminster or Geneva. If his preferred course of action happens to violate the arbitrary rules that sallow men in ill-fitting cloaks spend their lives dreaming up out of thin air, so be it. His academic work would barely be worth a footnote in history if he always adhered to the letter of the law and taking a metaphorical rap on the knuckles or paying a ridiculous fine is entirely worth it if it means that he can get on with things. It’s an annoyance but a necessary one and although Asriel feels a deep contempt for a system that allows one to buy one’s way out of a crime, it would be foolish not to work that system to his advantage.

In the last few years, however, it appears that the downsides have begun to outweigh those advantages. The long arm of the law has decided to try to tighten its hold on Asriel Belacqua and he can’t say that he appreciates it. The first letter came nearly three years ago, a month after his twenty-fifth birthday. It had been painstakingly polite, a reminder that as he was now twenty-five and still unmarried, by rule of law the Magisterium would provide him with a wife and would he please make an appointment at their offices in London to discuss the matter further. He’d ignored it. This particular law was a foregone conclusion in the lives of everyone in his social sphere- his mother had chided him with it, bovine female cousins had giggled about it at country shooting parties, his compatriots at Oxford had made off-colour jokes about it after too much port- but Asriel had never cared to dwell on it. Ostensibly, the courts had put the measure in place to ensure the purity and the endurance of the ever-dwindling upper classes, to bolster the country's finest families, to make sure any unnatural urges were deterred and that healthy, strong, _faithful_ bloodlines flourished instead of foundered. In reality, it was nothing more than an insidious measure of control, and everybody knew it. Asriel had ignored the letter and shoved the idea down into the recesses of his mind.

The next missive had arrived two months later, almost a carbon copy of the first. Asriel had barely glanced at it and half a week later he was on his way to Patagonia to meet a weathered old explorer whose collection of paragneiss promised to be useful for Asriel’s research into anarbic currents. He’d planned to go for a month and stayed for thirteen, returning to Brytain with a crate of notebooks filled to bursting with hypotheses and figures and stories. The nuisances of home had been pushed aside when he was away but, unsurprisingly, Asriel came back to a dozen letters waiting for him, each one measurably less polite than the last. Still, he had ignored them. He’d gone on long enough doing exactly as he wished, why on earth should that stop now because the powers that be were determined to attach a millstone around his neck? So far there had been no consequences for his lack of cooperation and he had no reason to believe that there would be. Consequences were something that happened to other people.

Or so he had thought until today.

The journey from London to Oxfordshire isn’t long but it’s tedious. His head is still firmly back in the Arctic Institute, plotting out next month’s journey through Baltic country but the airship is hot and crowded and it would be impossible to get any work done now so he waits, ideas spiralling through his head like a flock of overexcited birds. When he finally arrives at the Belacqua estate, every fibre of his being is itching to start writing, to exorcise all these thoughts onto the page. It’s not unusual for Asriel to come home and run straight to the library without a word to anyone but this time, Thorold stops him in the hall with a very dour look on his face and informs him that they’ve been graced with a visitor. Asriel’s mind clicks sharply back into the present, and he doesn’t like it.

This is nothing less than tyranny. The Magisterium won’t be satisfied until they have their greasy, dirty paws all over every aspect of his life. Everyone’s life. Asriel can almost feel the dirt already, seeping into his skin with every passing second that Father Farrell tries to stare him down.

“If you will merely sign your name, Lord Asriel, all of this needless unpleasantness can be over and done with.” Disgustingly false obsequiousness oozes from the priest’s every pore. His tone is deferential and he never fails to address Asriel by his title but the Magisterium have severely misjudged him if they think oily simpering is likely to convince him to do anything.

He’s more offended than he ought to be that they’ve merely sent one measly priest. After the amount of letters they sent, Asriel had almost expected an entire squadron, armed to the teeth and ready to drag him straight to the altar. But then, that’s the Magisterium down to their core; convinced that heavy paper in thick envelopes with ostentatious wax seals will intimidate the recipient into doing whatever objectionable thing their Church requires of them. Perhaps it usually works, perhaps most people see that symbol arrive on their doorstep and all their defiance crumbles into dust. But Asriel is not most people.

His jaw so tightly clenched that it feels as though the bones might shatter, Asriel picks up the pen. The priest’s exhalation of relief is audible and the tawny owl on his shoulder’s wings begin to spread before they fold back in again. With exaggerated slowness, Asriel shuffles through the papers, makes a production of dipping his pen in the ink pot and just at the moment when ink is about to touch paper, he pauses. The owl gives an irritating shriek and Stelmaria, at Asriel’s feet, flexes out her claws. Despite this show of animal instinct, Father Farrell still has a smile fixed on his face. Asriel considers it his personal mission to ensure that it won’t be there for very long.

“Tell me again, why exactly I have to submit to this indignity?” With his keen eyes on the man’s face, Asriel can see how much tension Father Farrell is carrying under that unctuous expression. The owl makes no sound this time. If he tried, Asriel could almost feel sorry for him. This can hardly be what he’d imagined his divine calling would be when he entered the seminary. The Magisterium lures them in with promises of power and purpose, stories of politicking with kings and communing with God’s grace- it's unlikely anyone ever told Father Farrell that he would turn into a balding middle-aged man who’d spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to convince errant aristocrats that the Church had only their best interests at heart. It can’t be pleasant. But Asriel doesn’t try and he doesn’t feel sorry for him, doesn’t feel anything except barely-veiled contempt.

“It is the law,” Farrell bites out, his grip on his own mask of unruffled patience slipping. Asriel merely raises his eyebrows, allowing amusement to twist at the corners of his mouth. His hand is no closer to making a mark on the page in front of him and he could quite happily do this all day. His guest, on the other hand, is clearly near breaking point. “You have had more than two years of evading your duties and responsibilities, my lord. You can evade them no longer. The only person you are making things difficult for is yourself.” _And you_ , Asriel adds silently. He remains visibly unmoved by the priest’s little speech, while Farrell's face is rapidly turning puce with irritation. Asriel learned a long time ago that complacent silence is the most effective tool against another man's anger, especially a man with as high an opinion of his own importance as Father Farrell; it turns frustration into fury, and a furious opponent is a careless opponent. Farrell squares his shoulders, a pulse visibly beating in his throat. Asriel watches the vein throb- for a moment, he can see a glimpse of the fire and brimstone preacher the man could have been if a lifetime of roasted goose and too much claret hadn’t softened him into dull, lifeless unimportance. A poster boy for the Magisterium if there ever was one.

“If you do not sign this today, I can assure you that the consequences will not be pleasant.” Farrell’s voice is raised now, his slimy amiability vanished into the ether. The owl screeches again and although Asriel merely permits himself the slightest of smiles, the low rumble of Stelmaria’s growl is unmistakable.

“Indeed?” is his only response. Farrell is either far braver than or exactly as stupid as he looks because he presses on with a malicious smile on his face.

“I'm sure you'd agree, it would be remarkably difficult for you to conduct your little experiments without all these... resources.” With a sweeping gesture towards the vastness of the library, Farrell’s smile stretches wider and Asriel grits his teeth. He hadn’t thought the man capable of any intimidation beyond blustering words and empty threats, but this threat is decidedly real. The courts all too frequently divest whichever unsuspecting nobleman the Magisterium cherrypicks of title, lands and money, all of which somehow manage to slither their way back into the government’s purse. The thought of men like Farrell getting their paws on his library is almost a physical ache and before he can control himself, Stelmaria is on all fours, teeth bared and glinting in the lamplight.

“And the nature of these experiments...” Farrell heaves a sigh that seems to rise all the way from his shiny black boots, his jowls trembling. He's enjoying himself now, Asriel can tell. Every sentence is punctuated with a dramatic pause so he can relish his own oratorical skills, to assess whether they're having the desired effect. Even if they were, Asriel would be thrice damned before he'd show it.

“The Magisterium has so far turned a blind eye, but you mustn't think it's escaped our notice that much of your work is- how best to put it? Unsavoury.” The smile turns slick and oily again, as though the two of them are sharing some private joke, but Asriel is most certainly not laughing. “Blasphemous, even. And surely you'd agree that the entire purpose of the Magisterium is to put a stop to activities like yours, in the name of the Lord. To ensure that dangerous heretics such as yourself don't move beyond the home counties, let alone slip away to the north and come back with any manner of terrible ideas...”

Blood is thundering through Asriel's head so loudly that he can barely hear the vile specimen of humanity speak and it's only Stelmaria’s paw on his leg that stops him from surrendering to his impulse and knocking every single one of the priest’s sugar-rotted teeth out. And Farrell must know what thin ice he's standing on because his left eye twitches unpleasantly as he continues:

“Unless, of course, you were to do something that, ah, reassured us of your good intentions.” The man shrugs, full of would-be geniality. “Then _nobody_ would have cause for concern, would they, my lord? Who could suspect a man of wrongdoing if they know him to be fully occupied with the distracting duties of a newlywed?”

For a long, painful moment, Asriel can do nothing but stare. His mind is ticking over at a mile a minute; possibly for the first time in his entire life, there doesn't seem to be a way out. Giving in would be unbearable even if it didn't mean anchoring himself to an inevitably useless chit of a socialite who probably couldn't point to Brytain on a map, but the prospect of abandoning his research...

With his own falsified smile that resembles Stelmaria's bared teeth far more than it does Farrell's sickening grin, Asriel scratches out his name on the document as hard as if the paper were the priest’s neck and the pen a dull, rusty blade. Father Farrell’s relief is so palpable that Asriel can practically see it and the tawny owl, its feathers fluttering, lets out a soft squawk. The man gathers the papers to him as if his life depends on them and, given the speed with which he makes his way to the door, there's a very good chance that it does. But before he gets there (because no matter what, Asriel will never fail to let his curiosity get the better of him), Asriel can't help but stop him in his tracks.

“I suppose you've already chosen a woman?” He isn't sure what answer he'd expected but the hunted look that springs immediately into Farrell's eyes had not been it.

“Oh, yes. We've chosen a woman.” 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It shouldn’t be as surprising as it is; the ink-splattered missive says nearly nothing new. But after two years of frustration and humiliation since she first opened an almost-identical letter, seeing a date and a location at the bottom of the page is enough to make Marisa need to dig her nails into the back of the monkey on her lap to slow her elevated heartrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short one but seemed like a good stopping place. Hope you enjoy!

The letter arrives with no particular fanfare. Thick envelopes embossed with the red wax seal of the Magisterium are hardly an uncommon delivery in the Van Zee household and it isn’t until she slices the letter opener across the top and pulls out the single sheet of paper that Marisa’s heart begins to sickeningly skitter in her chest. In barely two paragraphs, the rest of her life is sketched out before her in the shaky script of a decrepit church clerk. It shouldn’t be as surprising as it is; the ink-splattered missive says nearly nothing new. But after two years of frustration and humiliation since she first opened an almost-identical letter, seeing a date and a location at the bottom of the page is enough to make Marisa need to dig her nails into the back of the monkey on her lap to slow her elevated heartrate. She scans it once, twice, three times, fingers pressed tightly into soft golden fur. Two weeks from today, she will no longer be sitting at this breakfast table in her mother’s apartments in Chelsea while she opens her correspondence. Two weeks from today, envelopes that come through her letterbox will no longer be addressed to Miss Marisa Van Zee. And perhaps if this particular letter had arrived two years ago today, she might have felt something other than acid-tinged resignation at the realisation that Miss Van Zee will very soon be disappearing into the ether to make way for Lady Asriel Belacqua. Heaven forbid, she might even have been excited. 

If she wants to be scrupulously honest with herself (the only person that really warrants such honesty), Marisa has to admit that she had been excited, for want of a more decorous word. The honour of being cherry-picked for a man whose family had held the same lands and title since before even William the Conqueror had ever set foot on Brytish soil had certainly not been lost on her; it would have been an exhilarating prospect even if it had meant she’d had to share a bed with one of the gouty, thrice-widowed old goats who’d been a permanent fixture of every debutante ball Marisa had ever had the misfortune of attending. And although they’d never actually met, Marisa kept herself well-informed enough to know that the current Lord Belacqua was about as far away from a grizzled, impotent ex-Admiral or a rotund, red-faced factory owner as it was possible to be. During her own debutante season, she'd caught glimpses of him at the few functions the man had deigned to attend and although those glimpses had been fleeting, the impression they'd left was not. Between the snow leopard at his feet and the seemingly permanent glare on his admittedly appealing facial features, the man would have been difficult to forget. Among a sea of chinless aristocrats whose family trees plainly didn't have enough separate branches for their own good, Lord Asriel was just so much... more than other people. And for a woman who’d learnt long ago that the only way to get anywhere was to dim down her own vitality to a depressingly caliginous level, the thought of actually marrying a man who shone just as brightly as she did had been tantalising. 

As it had turned out, however, two years of fruitlessly lingering on the vine could very easily make the first buds of marital affection wither and die before they ever had the chance to bloom. Two years stuck in living purgatory, unmarried and yet unable to work for a match with any of the ever-dwindling number of bachelors in her circle. Two years in which Marisa was no longer the instigator of delicious gossip and cruel jokes, but became the subject of them- the woman who was such an off-putting prospect that her fiancee fled to another continent before even meeting her. If her high (and accurate) estimation of her own self-worth had been any less resolute, she would most likely have crumbled into the twittering obsolescence usually reserved for joyless spinsters. As it is, embarrassment has hardened her and any girlish fascination with her husband-to-be was ground into dust the first time someone dared to giggle behind her back in a Mayfair ballroom. She’s to be married in a fortnight to a man she’d rather run through with her letter opener, and she isn’t even to get a real wedding out of it. There’ll be no cathartic walking down the aisle of Westminster Abbey while old boarding school acquaintances squirm with jealousy in the back pews; they’re to be married in the chapel of her soon-to-be home and the letter makes it quite clear that this is not an occasion for pomp and circumstance. Marisa can hardly blame the Magisterium for wanting Lord Asriel dealt with as quickly and quietly as possible before he slips away to Siberia again but it does nothing to endear the man himself to her. On paper, the formula for a marriage like theirs is extensive and absolute; the engagement is announced on page thirty-four of The Times, mountains of entirely useless presents pile up on the sideboard in your father’s dining room, you spend a labourer’s yearly income on your trousseau, and you parade yourself around London as though you’re the first person in the world to fool a man into buying you a diamond ring. Thanks to Lord Asriel Belacqua, Marisa will get to do precisely none of these things. 

As she neatly folds the letter, ignoring the golden monkey’s anxious whimpering, Marisa smiles. She truly hopes that these past two years of Asriel Belacqua’s life have been enjoyable, because now his bride is determined to ensure that all the years to come will most certainly not be.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charming the man would usually have taken precedence over merely staring out of the car window, but today her energy is focused on something rather more important than flattering a seedy old priest. Besides, when her eyes flicker discretely over to him and the wretchedly ugly owl at his feet, both his wrinkled brow and the creature’s incessant twitching suggest that Marisa is no more his priority today than he is hers. She plunges her fingers into the thick fur of her own daemon, smugly secure in his beauty. The twinge of discomfort that echoes in her chest when she tugs and twines at his golden hair barely even registers; Marisa’s mind is on higher things. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been a minute, but here we are.

The winding drive that leads up to her new home is almost as stony as the dead silence inside the anbaric car that’s taking her there. The journey from London to Oxfordshire isn’t a particularly long one but Marisa’s conversation with Father Farrell had dwindled into nothing before they’d even left the capital. Charming the man would usually have taken precedence over merely staring out of the car window, but today her energy is focused on something rather more important than flattering a seedy old priest. Besides, when her eyes flicker discretely over to him and the wretchedly ugly owl at his feet, both his wrinkled brow and the creature’s incessant twitching suggest that Marisa is no more his priority today than he is hers. She plunges her fingers into the thick fur of her own daemon, smugly secure in his beauty. The twinge of discomfort that echoes in her chest when she tugs and twines at his golden hair barely even registers; Marisa’s mind is on higher things. 

She deserves more than this, more than the uncomfortable silence and heavy breathing of a middle-ranking clergyman as her only company on her ride to the altar. Not that deserving more is in any way a new sensation for Marisa. There’s scarcely a memory left lingering in her mind that isn’t marred to some degree with cold dissatisfaction. It’s inevitable, perhaps; when one is so much _more_ than other people, which she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is, even equal treatment feels like less. But this façade of a wedding truly is so much less than she deserves. If she lives to be a hundred- and the sudden internal flash of her mother’s birdlike, liver-spotted hands clawing at delicate china cups makes her fervently hope that she doesn’t- she won’t forget whose fault that is. 

There are certain things, however, that work wonders on even the most hardened heart. “Heartless” is a word she’s heard so many times that it’s stopped holding much meaning for her, but it was never really true to begin with. Although it’s been carefully cultivated and pruned, Marisa’s heart is still very much present; it must be, it’s the reason her blood is thundering through veins that suddenly feel too delicate to hold it as she catches her first glimpse of her new home. Even the mud-splattered window does nothing to diminish the beauty of a house that predates the Palace of Westminster, and she realises without much surprise that she’s wet beneath the skirt of her travelling suit. It’s not as if she’s a stranger to impressive residences and she’s hardly the kind of woman who’ll go weak at the knees over particularly fine flying buttresses, but this house is power writ large through every single brick. 

Instinctively, her nails sink into the monkey’s soft belly before he can even thinking of betraying their excitement to the oily old man in the corner. The information she’s garnered about her bridegroom suggests that it’s highly unlikely he has a priest reporting back to him but likelihood is not certainty, and Marisa has no intention of letting anything slip unless she absolutely has to. It would be deeply inconvenient to let Lord Asriel know that the grandeur of his ancestral home might do a great deal to take the sting from the humiliation of the last two years. 

Besides, as Marisa intends to impress upon her new husband very soon, even a great deal will not be nearly enough. 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By eleven o'clock that night, two things are crystal clear. 

The first is that her wedding was, without a doubt, the strangest in Brytish history. The second is that she loathes her husband with every fibre of her being. The two things are, predictably, related. 

If her engagement had been unusual (and it had), it’s absolutely nothing next to the ceremony itself. Marisa could almost laugh remembering how furious she’d been with this man she’d never met for not allowing her to invite her own guests; now it’s the only reason she feels even slightly grateful to him. Having a single one of her old schoolfriends sit in his dusty chapel and watch as her groom came to the altar in an oily workshirt... she would have impaled herself on the sword of the rotting statue of St Paul before the celebrant had even opened his mouth. Even without an audience, Marisa knows that she has never before and will never again feel such acidly burning humiliation as she did today. It had overpowered her to such an extent that she can hardly remember saying those hollow vows. 

But now, staring up at the ceiling in her solitary, new-old bed with the golden monkey at her feet, Marisa is determined that she will remember. She’ll keep every awful thing, just like she keeps all the injustices of her girlhood, sharp and whetted and ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. 

Her wedding dress, if one could call it that, a pale grey, knee-length piece of nothing because she mercifully hadn’t been stupid enough to buy a real one. 

The disinterested expression on Lord Asriel’s face when he’d seen her for the first time. She would have taken disgust, she would have even taken pity, anything but eviscerating neutrality. 

The state of the chapel, so derelict that it had seemed deliberate. It wasn’t as if she’d needed a reminder that her husband was loudly whispered to be a heathen, that the place where she was taking one of the seven sacraments was practically desecrated. 

Father Farrell’s face when he’d slunk away the instant the license was signed. The abject relief that had seemed to pour out of him and deform itself into foreboding by the time it reached Marisa. She isn’t foolish enough to think he’d been an ally, but in this place he’d seemed like the nearest thing she had. 

The labyrinthine layout of the house, the way that dour manservant had stridden ahead of her through endless corridors until he eventually shunted her into this comfortable but empty bedroom and muttered something about a maid bringing her things. One of the maids who’d openly stared at her as she’d passed, no doubt, as if they’d never seen a woman without a cloth cap on before. It’s worse than the first day of boarding school; every other inhabitant of the house is already familiar with the others, with long-since established traditions and routines that prevent Marisa from having any hope of laying down her own. But where stupid society schoolgirls in Geneva had been easily flattered, frightened or bought into making a Marisa-shaped space in their social circle, she imagines the people here will be rather less malleable. 

And now, possibly the worst thing of all, the unforgiveable indignity of having to spend her wedding night alone. She would have preferred something rough and unpleasant to this embarrassing solitude; Lord Asriel’s disdainful sneer as he mounted her like an animal would have been much easier to bear than the silence of this nearly empty room and the soft sound of the monkey’s tail swishing over the bedsheets. 

“This is a farce,” he hisses at her, and she thinks perhaps silence was preferable after all. His face is contorted with frustration and instinctively she bares her teeth back at him. 

“And what precisely do you expect me to do about that?” They keep their voices quiet, a long-ingrained habit from country house visits where spying maids are the rule rather than the exception, but it’s difficult to believe anyone would be spying here. Nobody cares enough. 

“We could run away,” the monkey says dully. Marisa doesn’t even bother to respond. Even if it were a possibility, the thought of running back to London and having her marriage annulled is far more shameful than staying here could ever be. She pulls at his tail listlessly and he bats her hand away with his much smaller ones before continuing. “We could-” 

But before he can suggest something doubtlessly equally useless, the door handle is turning with a crunching sound that only ancient wood makes and her daemon is leaping into her arms. Marisa only just has time to smooth her face into imperious blankness as her bedroom door opens and, rather than getting the opportunity to scold a presumptuous maid, she comes face to face with her husband. 

Dear Lord, that snow leopard is huge. It’s somehow far easier to look into the daemon’s rather pretty eyes than it is to look at the man beside her and as Marisa tears her gaze away, she realises she doesn’t even know the thing’s name. 

“Everything alright?” Well, that’s the most words he’s actually spoken to her so far. He’s huge too- Marisa had known that before today but it’s particularly noticeable in a house that was built so long ago a man like Asriel would have been labelled a giant. He’s actually too tall for the door frame and his head bows a little as he steps inside. Some women might find that endearing. Marisa isn’t one of them. And if he’s going to fuck her, she’d much rather he just did it. It’s a little late for niceties. 

“The room is very nice,” she says tonelessly. There could be scorpions in her bed and a floor made of hot coals, she would never have admitted anything otherwise. Perhaps it’s what she says, perhaps it’s the way that she says it but her answer seems to irritate him and with a brief nod, he turns right back around again. The monkey’s tiny fingers dig into her arm and before she can stop herself, she’s speaking. 

“Oughtn’t we... that is, don’t you want to...” 

If there’s one quality that could never be attributed to her, it’s timidity. She can fake it when necessary, certainly, but the real thing? Never. But there’s something about her new husband’s unrepentant stare, or maybe it’s the cool judgement in the face of his daemon, or simply the fact that she _knows_ he knows what she’s trying to say but won’t do her the mercy of putting her out of her misery, that renders her incapable of finishing the sentence. 

“No.” The word is quiet and, given the look on his face, said with a surprising lack of contempt. That doesn’t stop Marisa’s cheeks from reddening so quickly she can feel it, or her nails from digging into the palms of her hand and breaking the soft skin there far more quickly than usual. In pouring over every possible avenue that this evening might take, she hadn’t considered this one. Bearing herself up as haughtily as she can, she wills the flush in her face to calm and her voice not to shake. 

“But what if someone asks?” Asriel makes a face that even on such short acquaintance Marisa can guess precedes something she doesn’t want to hear, and presses on before he can speak. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Church happens to have all these funny little rules about consummation and annulment one is supposed to follow.” 

One thick, dark eyebrow twitches a fraction and Marisa thinks she hears a small huff of breath from the snow leopard, but she’s unwilling to take her eyes from his face to find out. 

“If someone asks...” He speaks slowly as if talking to an illiterate child, and Marisa can feel her cultivated hatred sharpening in her chest. “Lie.” 

Lie. Well, at least her first marital responsibility is something she’s already good at. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed this or just want someone to scream about Marisa Coulter/Masriel with, you can find me on tumblr at asrielcoulter.


End file.
